Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1887-01-11
LITTLE TU'PENNY.
By s. BARRING GOULD.
CHAPTER /.
How SHE CAME BIZ HER NAME.


are tiled with it, the very swallows
nests under the caves are nodded ont OF
It; walk along the roads, and your boots
are clogged with it; walk as gingerly as
you will, you are despatched with it.
Within 30 or 30 miles of London occurs
a tract of fat clay land, of fields Of cab
bages and beans and corn, surrounded by
stunted thorn hedges, with here and
there brick and tile yard, some worked,
others deserted: the old brick fields con-
verted into ragged sloppy depressions,
into which is cast all the refuse from the
neighb0rhood. There stand pools OF
stagnant water, fringed with coarse
grass, and the banks sparsely producing
doc, daisies, and yellow tansies.
The road here runs straight as though
made by the old Romans, or as French
road engineered under the first Napoleon.
Beside this road is q gate, opening into
o waste piece of ground slightly raised
above the surrounding surface, and on
this patch Of waste land stands wind
mill
The whole of the mill, built Of wood,
Is painted white, white as the flour that
Is ground in it.
Half q mile off runs the wall OF park.
That wall marks the limit of London clay
and the beginning OF gravel marks, where
beans end and trees commence, where
the pillow ceases to run its furrow, and
the COW and the sheep and even the deer
run instead
In the mill worked Joe Western, con-
sidered a surly, because a silent, man,
but certainly ungenial and unsociGble-a
good deal of London clay in his compost
ton apparently.
In the park lived Dick Redfern, the
keeper. his wife, and only child Trip. 1t
Is waste of words to say that Triptolema,
being an only child, was spoiled. But
then-waS there not an excuse for it7 An
excuse to be found in the appearance and
ways Of the child. Where an ugly, i'll
conditioned little girl is pampered and
petted, we see at once that the parents
are blamcworthy; but when the girl is
pretty and winsome, skillful in working
her way into the hardest heart, as the
wood worm bores into the most obdurate
oak, then we allow that the parents are
excusable.
How did the girl come by the name
Triptolema? Worse--infinitely worse
her entire Christian name was Triptolema
Yellowley, or to be more exact, Yellow
leaf She got her name in the following
manner.
Mrs Redfern, the keepers wife, had
been lady's maid at the hall to the Misses
Tottenham. When there she had on one
occasion been much impressed with hear
ing the name of Triptolemus Yellowley
frequently mentioned by the young la
dies, who had been reading Sir Walter
SCOTS pirate"
Their lady's maid heard the name, i'll
remembered it, though treasuring in her
mind the general sound of the name,
which she thought very fine; and when
she had married the keeper and became
the mother of a little girl, "Richard,"
said she to her husband, 'shc shall be
called Irptolema Yellowleaf, and no OBJ
lection on your part will be of the small
est weight with me"
"It's queer name"
"Queer it may he, Richard" said his
wife; 'but it is "A name that Sir Walter
Scott, Bart, did not blush to use; and
what a Bart, is not ashamed Of, don't
see that a gamekeeper should turn up his
nose at. y
II only said it was queer"
"Woll, surprising it be queer" said
Mrs Redfern; "tis st,ngy"
D-stingy (distingue Mrs Redfern
meantl the name of Triptolema might be,
found it eminently Distressing The
name lent itself to what Professor Max
Muller would call phonetic degradations.
1t invited the wags to try their witticisms
upon it, it provoked attention, it excited
envy in some, ridicule in others 1t was
not name that could be let alone.
When the master of the National school
desired to be particularly whitening in
his scorn he named her in full. At the
roll call, Trip was happy when only the
initials Of her Christian name were given
her
Finally. by that perversity which
eharactcriZes the popular voice (who pro-
pounded that preposterous hoax, "NoX
populi' voX Dei2n)-that voice which in
evitably pruuounces wrong, settled upon
the nickname which bore the smallest re-
semblance to Triptolema Yellowleaf Red
fern. First sporadically appeared the
designation, Little Tu'penny" and then,
by degrees, it displaced every other nick
name, and throughout the district, even
in the hall, she was known as Little
Tu'penny.'
Mrs Redfern was not the wisest of
women She had picked up smattering
of grand words, and n love of grand
things when she was lady's maid at the
keeper, in being able to flourish these
grand words, and talk of grand things.
She found it against the grain to descend
to the care of poor mans cottage, and
she kept Dick awake to the fact that, in
marrying him, she had come down. She
kept, indeed her little parlor in splendor,
with bugle mats, and antimacassars, and
glass flower vases, and smartly bound
hooks on the table, and glazed and gilt
framed chrome Autographs on the walls;
/ but her kitchen was most untidy, and
the meals she prepared for her husband
were uncomfortable, her pasties heavy.
her meat and potatoes over or underdone
"You see, Richard. my good fellow"
she argued, Il never was, thank Provi-
dence, SO low as kitchen maid, and
never was cook. If you'd wear long
hair, and let me do ii up, or have a
faringe. I'd show what my powers are,
and in what my genius lies Wait!
When LENA is grown up; won't only
make a splash with her head?"
| Trip, as her father called the little girl,
was as pretty. lively child AS ever was
seen. She had very fair curly fiaxen
hair, and dark eyes and lashes. Her
complexion was blooming. Her bright
/ face sparkled with merrimeut. She had
happy spirit, was amiable and engag-
ing, and would have grown into charm
ing Young woman had she not been
spoiled by her father and mother, by the
notice taken of her by the people of the
great house, RinCwood Hall. Every gen
tleman who went ont shooting with her
father had word for her, and laugh at
her pretty, coquettish ways. But it was
not her beau.y alone which attracted no
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